Birds and buds!

As with previous years since moving to where I am, I have spotted rounds of robins throughout the winter.  But to keep with tradition I will note that over the weekend I spotted several individual robins out and about foraging.  Last year it was March 3, so I feel like we're ahead of schedule even for this area.  The trees in the parking lot by the chinese restaurant I prefer also appear to be budded, this too has been one of the earlier signs I spot around here.

The joys of a newer home.  As Avery walked upstairs last night she told me the stairs were broken.  When I returned with her to investigate I had to thank her for pointing out to me that two more pieces of wood holding the spindles on the stairs had popped loose.  I say more because a couple of other ones were loose over a year ago.  Gorilla glue has been applied and nothing is falling apart at the moment.

Another thing that drives me crazy here is the flooring, which I have probably only mentioned as being worn or builder grade.  The carpet is crap -- but the best part is the spot outside of my closet where I think there is a screw laying sideways under the carpet.  The vinyl flooring in the bathrooms has spots where it's been damaged and is trying to lift up.  The fake wood on the main floor scoots back and forth under your steps giving quite the nice haunted house effect.  All of it cracks and pops, especially upstairs, likely thanks to subflooring that is not properly secured.

If I ever have don't give a poo money I'd like to build a place that harkens to the older homes - real wood trim and doors, neat architectural elements, and quality products applied in a solid and reliable way.  I suspect that the last little item in my list would be hard to find these days.

Still having waves of struggle.  I piled on by accident when I spotted something that reminds me of many years ago -- for someone else.  Then there was preparing a meal and opting to wait until tomorrow morning to go to church only to find I could have skipped cooking.  *sigh*

I do believe God has this.  All of it.  My personal "this", the country's "this" the world's "this".  I know that when I allow it all to get to me I am letting the enemy win -- but still I struggle with the fears welling up.

I haven't had to fight the blues much in recent years.  Maybe it was the hormones and changes from being pregnant... maybe it's just having Avery around, I dunno.  But I guess we all have our ups and downs.  Personally, I'm going to blame Valentine's day, it is often a good reason to be bummed out.

Life is flying by.  There is lots of work to do and not enough hours in the day.  The routine just consumes everything, ya know?  It is what it is.

I think the masks do very little, I hate them, you know this.  If given the option, I do not wear them.  That said, when I see someone wearing one I assume that they are more concerned.  As a result, I give them extra space etc.

I've never liked people in my space (prb one of the reasons I hated Walmart back when I actually went there).  One of the BENEFITS of the past two years has been that people stay the heck out of my personal space.  I've grown quite accustom to this delight.

Last night at the grocery store I was looking at the various cans of beans trying to find the baked beans I prefer.  The cart w/ Avery is in front of me and I am turned at a 45 degree angle looking at the shelf.  All of a sudden I sensed someone in my space and turned to my right/behind me to see a lady's masked face close enough that I reeled backwards a little.

If you are wearing a mask WTH are you doing getting that close any other human being?  Lesson learned - I need to cough more to claim my space.

Ice-pocolypse 2022 update:

While I am sure the roads were gross enough to warrant closing today daycare today I am still annoyed.  They closed at 3pm yesterday too, even though the temps were still above freezing at that point (and for a while after). I know, I know... they are just trying to keep everyone safe, but I am so over the closures. I probably wouldn't blink about this if we didn't have all of the covey related closures in the past few months on top of these weather related closures.

I do still think they've been taking more liberties than they should for "pending" weather.  This isn't school age kids who can continue with remote learning.  Avery does decently plopped in front of the TV while I continue to work and I should be grateful that she isn't younger, right?

After waking I saw quite a few posts on the local FB groups about power outages, so I kicked on the fireplace (gas with an electric starter). I don't want to turn it off, just in case, but it's starting to get toasty in here.  It might be shorts weather inside soon.

Speaking of power outages!  I got another call about a planned outage.  ahem.  So I guess they didn't do the work the last time?  *sigh*  Add this to the list of distractions and irritations about my efforts to get work in.

I just went and shoveled the driveway.  At the moment snow flurries are picking up.  I wanted to get any ice/crud out of the way as that is definitely heavier.  I'd say we had a nice 1" of crunchy mix under the dusting of snow from overnight.

In my defense I'm pulled too thin.  Our favorite egg was staying away after he was sick, visited once or twice and then had a repeated bow to other lingering ailments which has him staying away again.  My days are loaded with meetings, so trying to find a window between said meetings for an early pick up yesterday was fun.  I'm also supposed to be trying to get OT in at this point.

If I wasn't so embarrassed, posting a picture of my basement would sum things up.  The Christmas stuff isn't 100% away and there is a pile of outdoor Halloween decorations that never made it closer to 'away' than my garage.  I need to get my butt in gear because I now have the plumber coming due to the leak on the back outdoor faucet kicking back up - and he will need my junk out of his way to work inside.

Last summer I may have complained about the bib outside not always shutting off properly.  If you turned it back on and off again you would eventually get it to really turn off and stop dripping.  Naturally I did this before winter and put a cover on the bib.  Well, it started to run on me again *big scary blinking danger sign in Jan-Feb*.

Yes, there are shutoffs running to the bibs, but they're not where you'd think they would be.  They were found, but the one to the drippy bib wouldn't turn the whole way (go figure).

We went bowling today. It's been over 5 years which includes having a kiddo and a frozen shoulder and I did pretty darn well.

Our weekend was pretty peaceful.  Stuck around the house until evening church service last night after which we did a little shopping since the kid pushed to go have dinner down in Washington.  Today I got a bit of time in for work before we headed to bowl.  I am feeling pretty fulfilled this weekend.  Glad I got to spend some quality time with her.

On a sad note my cross broke.  I had it off after a massage last week.  When I tried to put the necklace back on I dropped the pendant and the rose gold portion separated from the silver portion.  At least I found a good repair place.  Fingers crossed that it can be repaired.

Last week the electric company notified me that they had a planned power outage for my house/street/area this morning.  I looked at the weather and it said low of 23 and a high in the 30s, so I wasn't sweating it.  This morning it was -7 on the way to take Avery to school.  The weather app was sticking to its guns claiming the low for today was going to be 23. *blink blink*

I headed to Starbucks for a few hours.  When I checked in via their text message service it indicated my power wasn't out.  I called their 800 number and was told that the work was done.  I was home early enough for most of my daily meetings to be from here rather than on my cell w/ the sbx noise in the background, but the power wasn't out. *shrug* ok, I'm good with that for sure... but how much are we betting the power is out by surprise some other day instead?

Speaking of work calls, I'm about done w/ all of them.  I'm truly struggling to get things done because it's one call after another.  The best part are the calls when you need to indicate what you did since the call yesterday... approximately NOTHING.  #feelingaccomplished

My shoulders and back did remarkably well despite the snow shoveling.  The strained feeling was minimal and I was pleasantly surprised.  Still coughing.  I wonder sometimes if you just end up in a habit of coughing which makes it go on longer than it needs to.  I tell myself to just not cough, but well... you know, what's the first thing you do when you think "don't do this".

Critter updates - Saffy goes for her yearly checkup tomorrow.  She was enjoying the snow with Zero earlier this week and feeling spunky.  Zero is doing ok.  There are some things he just needs to get through his head; I'm hoping consistency will be the hammer that gets them in there.  Church no longer lets me trim his nails easily, so I am trying to figure out how to get him to work with me without getting swatted at.

 It's the second half of January and we got our first _real_ snow overnight.  To be fair, most of the Western half of PA and several states south of us also got significant snow as well.  I went out to shovel the driveway twice last night in an effort to spread out the pain.  I still had a good bit this morning to clear away.  Even though I expect no one I still shoveled the stairs.  I was also a good girl and cleared around the fire hydrant in my front yard -- you're welcome neighbors.  It's been blowing around, so it's hard to guestimate the overall depth but I'd say we have 6-7".  School was closed today due to the snow fall, so I didn't need to get shoveled out, but I bet I'll see people turning around in my driveway more often today as a result -- again, you're welcome neighbors.

I no sooner finished shoveling and the flurries began again.  While I am reminded to be grateful that my shoulder functions this winter I am also saying a prayer that they still function tomorrow despite the abuse.

Happy 100th birthday in heaven to Betty White.  I made my little donations to my favorite Cat and Dog rescues, you should do the same :) 

Long before I realized today was Betty's birthday we had also assigned this day to Church based on lose guestimates that he was prb around 6 months old when we adopted him on July 17.  It worked out well to not overlap Mom's birthday or Saffy's birthday, so the 17th it was labeled on my calendar and today he got a special treat with his breakfast.  Even he watched me shovel the show this morning from the front window.

This past week saw daycare closed for 4 days... again.  I'm tired.  But more than that I feel guilty for the amount of time the kiddo spent watching videos.  Yes, some of them were educational, but nothing compares to real learning time.  Our favorite egg has been staying away because he tested affirmative.  Looks like that stint isn't up because he got another affirmative despite feeling better.

I guess if he had it that is what I had nearly two weeks ago?  If so what they advertise as primary symptoms are off the mark for the latest flavor.  This makes it all the more lame that they continue to check for fevers at school.

The doggo has been a bit more tolerable.  I am trying to be more diligent about some things to mitigate potential issues.

This weekend Zero has decided to go into 100% hardcore drive me insane mode.  We went outside to enjoy the snow Friday after school/work and he promptly jumped up, putting both front paws on Avery toppling her over.  She plopped down on her butt, and gratefully didn't end up smacking her head on the concrete, which could have easily happened.  I feel like all I did this weekend was yell - "leave the cat alone", "don't jump on her" (he will jump onto the couch not carrying if he's landing on Avery), "get out of there".  Today we went to the trampoline park and hung out w/ Avery's best buddy for a couple of hours.  We returned home to find that he was able to reach a significant amount of Avery's stuff.  If he can reach it from the crate he drags stuff into the crate and destroys it.  Her tent and tunnel, or what remained on the main body of each anyhow, are both in the trash at this point.  Her sleeping bag has a hole that will need to be repaired.  Avery didn't cry a ton, which I am surprised by, but grateful for.

I'm over it.  I can't stand having this huge crate in the middle of my living room forever.  There isn't a bigger space to put it where nothing can be reached.  You can't have it up against anything, as I learned in my bedroom, because when he has a poo accident you get to clean the whole wall too!

This has been an expensive few months with him - and I don't even leave very long/very often.  How long before him stomping on Avery, Church, or Saf is more than an annoyance?  What if he pushes Avery down the stairs?  What if he really hurts the cat?

I did it.  I left the message saying I just can't do it anymore.  I don't know what else to do.  I never thought I'd be this person.  I miss the peaceful existence I had 4 months ago.

Saffy had her 13th gotcha day on the 3rd (we labeled her 14 yo as a result).  With Zero's birthday right after Christmas and Church's birthday earmarked for later this month we'll do one celebration later this month.  That buys me some time to figure out what I am going to do for them.  I'd like to think that I would make them some special treats - but let's be honest, even when I didn't have a kid and a lot more free time I didn't make treats but a couple of times.  I think I need to order something special and maybe plan to cook up some meat and rice to distribute to the gang.  Other ideas are welcome.

Avery and I have a lovely cough.  Around the same time I also managed to get sore ribs (intercostal muscles) again (from being in the car for a couple of hours) and shifted back to no longer being overheated.  I thought briefly that I was going down hard, but I had no fever - I truly think that my hormones finally flipped back the other direction.  It's been a couple of years that I was rarely even wearing a winter coat out of the house, but the past few weeks I have found the 20s to be painfully cold.  My sinuses are now pissed off, so it's time to do the neti pot tonight and get past this.

I have been going back and forth on my extra vitamins because I was trying to determine what was causing my nosebleeds.  I would take them for a couple of days and then have 3-4 nosebleeds a day.  Stop the vitamins and a couple of days later the nosebleeds would stop.  Debugging has led me to blame the zinc.  Further searches tell me that supplementing zinc could drain your body of copper thus giving you the nosebleeds.  Very interesting.  So the question is, can you supplement copper?  I need to research more.  At least I can continue w/ my vitamin d, vitamin c, and n-acetyl cystine.

I have been telling myself I am overdue for purging.  I need to go through so many things and cut some stuff loose.  I had taken one quick load to donate before the new year (baby bedding and a queen sized comforter since I no longer have a queen bed in this house).  Last night I found the last minute motivation to clean out the kitchen junk drawer!  It took way longer than I would have liked, which should make the full task in front of me seem extra daunting, but it was therapeutic.  I found myself quickly gathering a garbage bag of clothes before bed too.  I need to go through the other cabinets and closets and then maybe I'll have the momentum necessary to tackle the basement.